> Debbie Deutsch wrote: > > Maybe someone can help me figure out how to get RAID 0 up > and running > > under FC 4. My system has a pair of SATA II drives and an > nforce 410 > > chipset. <snip> > > > > I know some people advise to turn off "fake raid" support > in the BIOS > > and just do software raid. So, here are my questions: > > > > A) is there any way at all (from inside FC4 when it is running or > > during > > install) to get at the raid array that I have made in the BIOS? > > > > B) if the answer to the above is no, and I need to disable > RAID in the > > BIOS, do I still use dmraid (because the nv_sata driver is > involved) > > to set up the array under FC4? Or can I accomplish > everything in Disk > > Druid during the install? Or do I need to set things up in > Disk Druid > > and then activate the RAID array in dmraid? > > > > C) if the answer to A) is yes, what advantage would there be to > > disabling the BIOS RAID anyway? (I'm just curious.) > > > > When I finally do get this working, perhaps I should write > a HOWTO for > > this > > - a real step-by-step cookbook. OTOH, FC5 is coming soon... > > > > TIA > > > > Debbie > > > > > > Forget about the bios settings for RAID. They need special > software and that may be a Windows Only issue. Install both > SATA cards and then configure them using raid tools. > > My bios settings did nothing to get the RAID 1 working on my > computer. > Using the raid tools I had the drives up and running in no time. > Note, I only use the RAID drives for my home directory. > > A benefit of using totally software raid is if you want to > add more drives. It is very easy and you can move the drives > around between controllers without much work. > > I added two drives and a controller, moved one of my drives > from the MB SATA port to the new controller port. Put one of > the new drives on the empty MB port and the other on the new > controller. Booted the machine and the original RAID was up > and running. Configured the new drives as RAID 1. Created > an LVM and then moved all my data to the new LVM. Converted > the old RAID array to LVM and added it to the Volume and > resized the partition. It was just that easy. > Thanks very much, Robin. That looks like the way to go for FC4. However, since my original post I experimented with FC5 T2. My hard drives were configured as a bootable RAID array in the BIOS. The FC5 installer did not bat an eyelash. It asked me if it would be okay to erase all the information so it could format and partition /dev/mapper/xxxx. (I don't remember what xxxx was; it was alphabet soup that probably identified the RAID controller and the array.) After that, everything just worked. The installer treated the RAID array just as I would expect it to treat a true hardware RAID array. To ice the cake, I could even boot from it without doing anything special. This is exactly what I want to be able to do. I see your point about the flexibility that LVM offers. Thanks for explaining. It's certainly something to bear in mind. In this case, however, the system is a small-form-factor machine with room for two drives only. So, the expanded RAID support in the FC5 installer looks very attractive to me! Debbie
